This story was written in response to a prompt from xXxiloveapplesxXx. The prompt was the following:

Blaine's mother is Filipino and makes him a nice Filipino lunch for school every day. The Glee Club always found it interesting and wanted to try new things. Then they become popular and the Cheerios and football players join. We've seen that Kitty is a racist ** so she immediately remarks on his food. As the days go by she gets nastier about his culture and no one ever says anything. Marley is the first one to say anything and he wonders why his friends didn't.

Before you start reading, I would like you all to know that the opinions (and obvious racism) voiced in Kitty's comments are not my own. It was actually a real challenge to me to write a story like this. I hope no one gets offended by Kitty's comments in the story because that was absolutely not my intention.

Also: I don't really know much about the Philippines or its culture, so any references come from information I found on the Internet. I hope I didn't get too many facts wrong. The same goes for slang or offensive words I have used in the story: English is not my mothertongue, so I had to look those words up. I have no idea whether they're actually used by English-speaking people.

And then the necessary warnings: This story contains racist comments and bullying. If that bothers you, I suggest you don't read this. Also: there are spoilers for season 4.

Disclaimer: I don't own Glee or any of its characters.

True Colours

"What is that horrible smell?"

Blaine rolled his eyes unnoticed when Kitty and her football buddies joined the glee club at their usual table in the cafeteria.

"It's coming from you, Anderson." She directed her usual sneer at him, theatrically sniffing the air around him. "Did you try a new cologne today, or something? 'Cause I can tell you right now that it stinks."

Her brainless buddies snickered, enjoying the scene. Blaine ignored her and continued eating.

"Ew. It comes from that." Kitty was now pointing at his fork, which hung in mid-air with food falling off. "Do you call that food? What is that?"

"It's called kare-kare."

"Am I supposed to know what that is?"

"It's a Philippine dish. You can try it if you want."

It wasn't the first time someone had asked Blaine about the meals his mother sometimes made for him to take to school whenever she had the time. Most of the glee club members that remained from last year knew Blaine's mother was from the Philippines and she had already become famous among them for her cooking skills. Whenever he brought one of his 'special lunches', they were always very eager to try them, so his mother had taken to making some extra for his friends.

"Gross. I wouldn't touch that with a stick. Are you trying to poison me or something? I can't believe anyone would eat that."

"It's a very well-known dish in the Philippines," Blaine retorted calmly. "And as far as I know, no one has ever died eating it."

"Are you trying to be all... multicultural, Anderson?" She said it as if it was a bad thing, something evil.

"I already am, Kitty." She raised one eyebrow sceptically. "My mother is Filipina."

Her mouth opened slightly, as if she hadn't expected that. Which she probably hadn't, considering Blaine could easily pass as being white.

"Really?" she said slowly, narrowing her eyes. Then she exaggeratedly walked around the table and sat down as far from him as possible. Blaine himself didn't really mind. He didn't like the rude Cheerio and was actually glad she had decided to stay away from him.

But he was wrong.

Over the next few days, he suddenly found himself being shoved into lockers again by Kitty's cronies while the girl herself looked on from a distance with a superior smirk on her face. The others didn't seem to have the same problem; after all, glee club had become popular since they had won Nationals last year, so there was no reason for them to be pushed around. Except for Blaine, apparently. He suspected it had something to do with what had happened in the cafeteria, when he had told Kitty about his parentage.

Lunch wasn't much better. It went from small pranks like stealing his fork and replacing it by chopsticks – didn't she know people in the Philippines don't usually use chopsticks? – to making rude and often hurtful comments about his food, Asian people in general and his mother in particular. What hurt the most, though, was that whenever Kitty made these kind of remarks, the rest of the glee club would look away and stay silent. When Kitty found out Mrs. Rose was Marley's mother, Blaine was given a few short days of reprieve, until the joke had worn thin and Kitty aimed her arrows back at Blaine. And while his friends now no longer had a problem with defending Marley and her mother against the Cheerio's vicious comments, they didn't do the same for Blaine.

"A salad? Are you sure your system can handle that, Flip? Maybe you should go ask the lunch ladies if they have any rice leftovers. Or if you're lucky, someone brought a dog they're willing to kill for you to eat."

"Did you find that in the garbage, Asian smurf? Can't say I'm surprised. You're probably used to eating out of a garbage can, right?"

"So, Dog Muncher, how did your parents meet? Oh, sorry, stupid question. Everyone knows you don't meet mail-order brides beforehand. Well, I guess it's better than remaining a prostitute for the rest of her life."

It had gone on for days, but that's when Blaine had enough. He could take comments about the food he ate or that were aimed at himself, but he refused to let them insult his mother in his presence.

"For your information, Kitty, my mother was born in the United States. Just because her parents were Filipino, doesn't mean she's a prostitute or in any way inferior to you. And I would appreciate it if you'd keep your racist comments to yourself."

It didn't have the desired effect. Kitty and her goons just started laughing. Blaine should have known better, of course; telling bullies off politely had never worked in the past and, obviously, not much had changed. Instead, they upped their game, making more derogatory remarks about his Asian descent.

As strong and proud as Blaine was, he couldn't help but feel hurt when, once again, his friends didn't do anything about the blatant bullying. Gritting his teeth, he tried not to pay attention to them and to continue eating, but he had long lost his appetite. The Cheerios and the jocks at their table kept going, trying to one-up each other at coming up with insults.

Until someone put a stop to it.

"Knock it off!" Marley yelled, standing up in indignation. "Leave him alone. Just because he's half-Filipino, that doesn't give you the right to bully him." She abruptly turned to the members of the glee club. "And what about you guys? You're supposed to be his friends. Are you really just going to sit by and let them harass him like that?"

At that, Blaine stood up as well, gathered his stuff and walked away without saying a word.

"Some friends you guys are."

Before she turned around to follow Blaine out, Marley was pleased to see a blush of shame spreading on the faces of most of the New Directions.

She found him in the auditorium. He was sitting at the piano, idly playing some melodies she didn't recognise. Marley knew Blaine must have heard or at least seen her coming, but he didn't react when she sat down on the bench next to him.

"Are you okay?" she asked after a while.

"I'm fine," he answered almost automatically. She knew he was lying, but didn't call him on it.

"Don't listen to what those guys said about you and your mother."

They were quiet for some time, listening to the tunes Blaine was playing.

"I'm sorry," Blaine said quietly, "for not standing up for you when they insulted your mother last week. I guess you're a lot braver than I am."

"No, I'm not. It's just... It's nothing new to me, you know. Everywhere I go, I get comments about my mum. It's even gone so far that she begged me not to tell anyone about her this time. But she's my mum, I'm not ashamed of her."

"Neither am I." Blaine finally stopped playing to look Marley straight in the eyes. "I'm proud of who I am, ancestry and all. And I'm no stranger to being bullied either. I'll admit I don't usually get insulted for being half-Filipino, but I can handle it."

He looked down at his hands.

"I... I thought it would be different this time," he confessed softly. "There's no zero tolerance policy at McKinley, but at least I have friends here. Before Dalton, I never had that. I never expected anyone to help me because I didn't have anyone to help or defend me, especially after I came out. … But they didn't even say anything. They just sat there. That's actually the worst part: the fact that someone I barely even know – no offence – had my back while the people I call my friends didn't do anything."

"They'll come round, once the glory of new-found popularity has worn off."

"Let's hope so. Thanks, by the way."

"You're welcome."

"Blaine!"

The hallway wasn't nearly as crowded as it usually was, which wasn't surprising considering the fact that there had been a shooting less than a week ago. Most parents still kept their children at home, in spite of the metal detectors now installed at the entrance. He turned around towards the voice that had called his name and saw Kitty approaching quickly. He knew she had been shaken up by the incident enough to be trying to make amends with several members of the glee club. But ever since he had joined the Cheerios, she had been acting almost pleasant towards him, even before the incident last week.

"Listen, short stuff. I... wanted to apologise to you. I was horrible to you at the beginning of the year and I'm sorry."

She rushed the words out as if she wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible. Blaine supposed it must be difficult for someone like her to admit she had been wrong. And after last week, he was more willing to forgive her than usual.

"Thank you. I appreciate that."

She let out the breath she was holding.

"You know, you're actually a pretty good guy, short stuff. If you hadn't been gay, I wouldn't have hesitated to jump your bones."

With that, she walked away, swishing her ponytail and leaving Blaine to stare after her.

The end.

I hope this was what you were expecting. Personally, I could hardly imagine the ND not doing anything about the bullying, but then I remembered that in the first episode, Blaine and Sam weren't Blam! yet and Tina still considered Blaine as competition because they both wanted to be the new Rachel. That helped. (I have to admit, though, I'm really starting to like Kitty, especially after Shooting Star, so that made this even harder.)

Let me know what you think!